One Month Anniversary

Well, I’ve been doing this for a month and despite the lack of posting in recent days, I’m still loving it. I’ve managed to get 5,567 hits and 221 comments.

The report I started this blog to publicize has been downloaded by 20 of you–I hope more will take the plunge. In the meantime, I’ve learned more about global use of energy, which stubbornly continues to grow at 5% per year while everyone wants it to grow at half that rate.

And I’ll continue to beat that drum on this blog. Planners, politicians, economists and plain ol’ citizens are not getting the information we need to make good decisions that involve energy. This planet is going to use a lot more energy by 2030 (which is just around the corner) than the prognosticators have figured.

This means that those planning for one future will have to deal with another. And that means coal. The easy to get, easy to burn, easy to transport fuel that has worked so well for humanity over the past two centuries (except for those minor problems with health, habitat and the atmosphere…).

If we don’t prepare for the real amount of energy we need we will have no choice.

2 responses to “One Month Anniversary”

Congratulations. Growing global energy use of is good and necessary. “,,, not getting the information we need to make good decisions that involve energy” sounds like the deficit model and may not be true. Planners and politicians are probably inundated with information.

Tom, I think that it will take a while before everyone realizes what is unique about this blog. But it will get there.
I will probably just interject some random thoughts wherever they seem close to pertinent.
It may not have been your aim, but you have made a strong case that the major decisions coming up will not be made in the USA. Americans will be observers. Many will take place in countries where the government is taking an active role in decisions, not just handing out subsidies and tax breaks. I recently was at a conference with a bunch of third world earth scientists. They have a very different idea of what is and is not environmentally sound.
I do not think that it is so much that we are making decisions with a deficit of information, but so much of our information is false. It is skewed by one interest group or another.
I think that the Sierra Club scandal is the tip of the iceberg. Most of these large “environmental” groups are not creating hysteria to pursue a Marxist agenda (although the likes of Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben are doing their best to create the illussion) but are simply fronts for various energy lobbies. Everyone seems to forget when the Sierra Club was pushing nuclear. Which gets me back to a question you asked on another thread about the environmental impacts of hydroelectric. I bet these studies on the adverse effects of hydro have the same origin as the gas industry paying off the environmental “industry.” One energy lobby is trying to look good by making another look bad.
Keep up the good work.